Chapter 1 - THE THIRD IMPOSSIBLE PREGNANCY
“Mother Teresa, I think I’m pregnant again.”
The pencil slipped from my hand.
Sister Lucía Morales stood before my desk with seven-month-old Emiliano pressed against her chest while two-year-old Mateo sat on the rug beside her, twisting the loose cord of her habit around his fingers.
“Again?”
Lucía lowered her eyes.
“I’m sick every morning. Dizzy. I know what it feels like.”
If she was right, it would be her third pregnancy in less than three years.
And it should have been impossible.
My name is Teresa Alvarez. I had served nearly twenty years as Mother Superior of Santa Clara, a small Catholic women’s religious community outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Our residential wing was controlled carefully. Visitors remained in designated rooms. Contractors were escorted. Exterior doors were alarmed after evening prayer.
No man entered the sisters’ sleeping quarters at night.
Yet Lucía had already given birth twice.
Both times she insisted she had not slept with anyone, had not left secretly, and had not broken her vows with a man.
After Emiliano’s conception, I replaced locks, reviewed visitor logs, inspected the attic, basement, garden shed, boiler room, and old bell stairwell.
We found nothing.
Dr. Rachel Reynolds arrived before noon.
After examining Lucía, she set down her stethoscope.
“She’s pregnant.”
Lucía crossed herself.
I noticed something near the chair.
A narrow strip of white medical tape.
Rachel picked it up, frowned, then asked Lucía to roll up her sleeve.
Near the inside of her elbow was a red puncture mark.
“When did someone put an IV in you?”
Lucía stared at her arm.
“No one did.”
Rachel looked at me.
“This is recent.”
Lucía pulled Emiliano closer.
“My boys sleep in my room.”
That sentence changed the problem completely.
I moved Lucía and the children into the room beside my office and replaced the lock myself.
Then I gathered the sisters.
“No medication, tea, supplements, or food prepared specifically for Lucía unless Dr. Reynolds approves it.”
Sister Beatriz stepped forward.
At forty-four, she ran our infirmary and had worked as a registered nurse before entering religious life.
“I should still make her nighttime tea. She barely sleeps.”
“No.”
Beatriz’s eyes stayed on mine.
“She needs it.”
“She’ll manage without it.”
For perhaps half a second, something crossed her face.
Not irritation.
Fear.
That evening I pulled a chair into the corridor outside Lucía’s new room.
At 1:17 in the morning, I heard bare feet on the tile.
May you like
Beatriz appeared from the darkness with a key ring in one hand.
She stopped when she saw me.
